Environmental and energy geotechnics

The Environmental and Energy Geotechnics group focuses on understanding the properties and behavior of geomaterials in the Earth’s subsurface, including minerals, soils, sediments, and sedimentary rocks. A unifying theme is clay, which exerts strong control over solute mobility, chemical reactivity, hydraulic performance, and mechanical integrity in geomaterials such as bentonite barriers, clay liners, shale, sediment, and geologic faults. Our research is organized around the interconnected domains of environment, energy, and materials.

Our work examines clay across multiple length scales, from nanometers to kilometers, by integrating molecular simulations, multiphase flow modeling, and laboratory experiments. Through this multiscale approach, we advance fundamental understanding of mineral microstructure, interactions, and dynamics, and how nanoscale processes shape the emergent macroscale properties of geomaterials.

This knowledge enables us to address environmental challenges such as waste containment, contaminant sequestration, coastal protection, and underground engineering; energy-related applications including carbon geological storage, geothermal energy, and critical mineral recovery; and the development of advanced geomaterials and clay-based functional materials, including geopolymers, for sustainable engineering solutions.

News

• March 2026: On March 6, we launched the first group meeting at NTU Singapore. 

• March 2026: Linfeng Chen, a Ph.D. student from Donghua University, joined the group as a Visiting Scholar.

• February 2026: Dr. Wenjie Dai, who earned a Ph.D. in Geotechnical Engineering from Tongji University, joined the group as a Postdoctoral Researcher. 

• February 2026: Dr. Weiquan Zhan, who holds a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Science from the Autonomous University of San Luis Potosí, Mexico, joined the group as a Postdoctoral Researcher. 

• February 2026: Dr. Zheng was invited to deliver a colloquium talk in the Department of Geosciences at Stony Brook University in New York. The talk title is “Clay Across Scales in Geosciences and Geotechnics”. 

• January 2026: Lingkai Hu, a Ph.D. student from Zhejiang University of Technology, joined the group as a Visiting Scholar.

• January 2026: Dr. Ming Lu, who holds a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from Sun Yat-sen University, joined the group as a Postdoctoral Researcher.

• January 2026: Jingjie Guo, a Ph.D. student from China University of Mining and Technology, joined the group as a Visiting Scholar.

• November 2025: Dr. Zheng started a new journey as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore.